Watching a webinar on the Dutch hydrogen backbone: Hyway27. Govt budget 2022 has funding for it. streamxpert.nl/hyway27webinar…
Modeled hydrogen flows in 2030 over the backbone infrastructure in the Netherlands, with the planned 3-4 GW of electrolyzer capacity, in PJ/year.
10 PJ = 2.8 TWh = 8,000 tonnes of hydrogen.
The idea is to use existing gas pipelines, becoming available as the Groningen gas field has to ramp down production.
The repurposing costs are estimated at just €0.4 million per km (cleaning, preparing, valve replacement) vs over €3 million for a new pipeline.
That's for 36-inch pipelines (diameter 0.9 meters), without transport compression. These 2030 flows won't need that, assuming that the hydrogen is put into the pipeline at sufficient pressure. For higher capacities, hydrogen compressors will add substantial cost.
The Dutch Ministry of Economy and Climate has asked (state-owned) gas TSO @Gasunie to develop this Hyway27 backbone, for the reasons below:
@Gasunie Gasunie's subsidiary HyNetwork Services has done a survey. Potential producers of hydrogen in the Netherlands have much higher expectations of volume by 2030 (100 TWh) than future users (20 TWh). Discrepancy still high for 2035 as well.
Roll-out plan for the Dutch Hydrogen Backbone:
First pipelines to be converted in 2023-2025
Substantial parts ready by 2028
Completed by 2030
The backbone will be open access, non-discriminatory. Actual market demand for hydrogen transport will determine the roll-out.
Pressure in the network will be 50 bar entry, 30 bar exit.
Purity at least 98%.
Current state of development:
HyNetwork Services is gathering Expressions of Interest from future hydrogen network users.
Services to start in cluster Rotterdam (2024), followed by North-NL (2025), Amsterdam and Zeeland (2026).
Question on safety of transporting hydrogen.
Answer: We thoroughly looked into this. Requires similar measures as for transporting natural gas, with some modifications. No showstoppers.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Nasty climate tipping point in sight, especially for NW-Europe! "Nothing drastic will happen at the moment we cross it - which might be soon - but after that the collapse of the current will be unstoppable." And could lead to rapid regional cooling, not so far away from us.
This is a simplified map of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), bringing heat from the South Atlantic, via the Caribbean to the European side of the North Atlantic. On cooling there, the water sinks to 2-3 km depth and takes the cold to the South.
Without the AMOC, the North of Europe - especially Iceland, Scandinavia, and Britain - would be much colder than it now is.
Agreement between right-far-right Dutch coalition parties published now. Thread with some points on climate and energy. These are the plans, but execution will of course be key. Wilders and his PVV are in full climate denial, like much of the EU's far right.
1/
- Stick to existing agreements, no higher ambitions than EU policy
- No rules for improving energy efficiency of owner-occupied homes. Obligation (from 2026) to install heat pump on replacing gas-fired heating boiler canceled.
- End of EV subsidies in 2025.
2/
- Study how zero-emission zones in cities kan be delayed to create exceptions for entrepreneurs, but creating such zones remains decision of municipality.
- An end to subsidies for Bio-energy with CCS (for negative emissions) as soon as possible.
3/
Starting a week-long business & pleasure trip to Spain, by train!
Hope to be in Barcelona this evening :)
I'll keep you posted in this🧵
The plan for today: Utrecht - Rotterdam - Paris - Barcelona. The tricky part is changing trains in Paris. Theoretically 2 hours should be more than enough to get from Paris-Nord to Gare de Lyon (the rail planner irresponsibly proposed 1 hour), but @Eurostar is often delayed (2/n)
Made it to Rotterdam, at least ;)
Bit very early, but hey, why hurry on a Saturday morning? (3/n)
Reading the Dutch "Action agenda congestion low-voltage grids".
The accelating energy transition already brings grid issues here. In the low-voltage distribution grid, the growing number of solar panels (PV), electric cars (EV) and (hybrid) heat pumps ((h)WP) is the challenge.
Without measures, a large and growing number of households would experience periods with too high or too low voltage (over- resp. onderspanning) or risk of grid failure.
Measures are categorized in: 1) accelerating grid expansion 2) more efficient use of the grid capacity 3) saving energy as much as possible.
1) already gets a lot of attention, and each of the three main DSOs plans to spend around €1 billion/year. Many hurdles though.
"Transition doesn't make energy cheaper, but to the contrary, significantly more expensive"
Headline in Dutch @Volkskrant yesterday, 9 days before the elections here. "Consumers and companies will pay 92% more for electricity and natural gas by 2030".
Hmm, let's look into that.
Firstly, as others have already pointed out too, it's a comparison between 2020 and 2030. In 2020, energy was cheap: Covid reduced demand, and Russia hadn't started its energy war and attack on Ukraine yet.
Compared with 2023, not a lot would remain of the "+92%".
Looking into the forecasted price increase 2020-2030 it has three components: 1. Tax (Belasting) +€5 billion. That'd be a political choice, which has little to do with the energy transition. 2. Grid (Netbeheer) +€5 billion. Increase to be expected indeed.
But ...